


You Whom I Cannot Betray

by LauraEMoriarty



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, F/M, Fifth Blight (Dragon Age), Grey Wardens, Ultimate Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:14:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27272506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraEMoriarty/pseuds/LauraEMoriarty
Summary: A wee treat for Jarak. :D Enjoy it.
Relationships: Female Aeducan/Gorim Saelac
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5
Collections: 2020 A Paragon of Their Kind Dragon Age Dwarf Exchange





	You Whom I Cannot Betray

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jarakrisafis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jarakrisafis/gifts).



Yes, you who are broken by power,  
You who are absent all day,  
You who are kings for the sake of your children's story,  
The hand of your beggar is burdened down with money,  
The hand of your lover is clay.  
Into this furnace I ask you now to venture

\- Leonard Cohen, _The Old Revolution_

_“Gorim, run_!”

Those words, spoken so long ago now that Gorim barely remembered a time before. Had he run _from_ her, or _to_ her? He didn't know. One minute, she’d been the woman of his dreams, and then she was gone, engulfed in the darkness of the Deep Roads— an exile. He knew better than most that Sereda Aeducan wouldn’t perish there; that she would go and fight for what she believed in. He knew too, beyond a shadow of doubt that she had not murdered her brother— the crime for which she had been exiled. There had been Grey Wardens in Orzammar, a small host of blight-battlers from the surface. She’d make her way to them, surely.

He’d been exiled, stripped of caste and clan. No longer a warrior, worthy of commanding an army, of leading a people. Gorim Saelac had been all those things, once. Warrior. Lover. Perhaps even a husband one day. Now he was nothing. Worse than nothing. A disgraced dwarf— even Oghren, for all his faults, had remained warrior-caste. But then again, Oghren’s crime had been minor compared to his: his wife had deserted him, not been framed for murder.

And Gorim, raining blows on steel in a Denerim forge, knew it.

He pounded the steel with a hammer, the tool so crude compared to the axe he once held, the only combat he saw now were drunken tavern brawls, not the Provings. Ancestors, he missed the Provings.

A year had passed, maybe more. He met a surface dwarf, married her.

But he still imagined Sereda when he closed his eyes, when he took her to bed.

He doubted he’d ever feel what he had for her for another woman.

And then, suddenly, he saw a shred of azure and argent, a flash of a griffin embossed on silverite armour.

“Fine dwarven crafts—” the words were easy now, showmanship. He’d known finer steel, finer weapons. But that part of his life was over. “…. Sereda?”

The dwarf turned, and he felt his breath catch in his throat. Grey eyes and hair the colour of flame. How many times had he lifted that hair to kiss her neck, how many times had he threaded his hands through it? Countless times, a lifetime. He’d seen those eyes dark with desire, with mirth, alight with love. The eyes that shared a joke with him, a quick glance that told him what to do, and where to go. Once, he’d known her body as well as he’d known his own.

“Gorim,” Sereda said, her smile radiant, just as he’d remembered.

He wanted to embrace her, wanted to take her to a tavern and fuck her senseless until the only thing either of them remembered was each other. To lose himself in her arms would be glorious reverence, a worshipping of who she was to him.

But he couldn’t.

Too much had changed.

“Princess,” Gorim knelt, and her hand rested lightly on his shoulder.

She raised him to his feet.

“Not any longer,” Sereda said. She glanced back at her companions, who seemed to vanish into shadow and dark alleyways. “Is there somewhere we can talk? And do not kneel to me, I don’t deserve it.”

“You are always my Princess.” He hated that his voice wavered on the last word, that it cracked and broke. “I thought you dead. I prayed every day to the Ancestors that you weren’t. And it seems my prayers were not in vain.”

Gorim took her hand, kissing it with reverence. Her hand had changed in the year he’d missed with her, stronger, with the true callouses of a warrior, and not a lady. But she’d never truly been a lady— not to him. She’d been a warrior, a leader, his _queen_. Even if the Assembly never chose her to succeed Endrin, he’d always think of her as his Queen.

“It’s good to know you thought of me, and prayed for me,” Sereda said, her voice cracking. “I prayed for your safety, every night, every day. Every time we made camp. But I know I cannot be with you.”

Gorim swallowed a lump that had formed unbidden in his throat. “Come to bed with me,” he said impulsively. The words were out of his mouth before he realised he’d spoken them.

“I can’t.” Sereda’s voice held pain. “I asked around before I went searching the marketplace. Gorim, I…. I saw _her_ , her father, her round belly. Don’t throw that away for one night.”

“But—” Gorim’s voice was soft. “I don’t love her like I love you.”

“You love her, and she is not to be treated poorly. It does not befit your station,” Sereda said. “I would lose respect for you if we did this. I am a Grey Warden now, sworn to one purpose and one purpose alone,” she continued, her words halting. “Kardol’s men march for the surface, as does the might of Bhelen’s army. I know he framed me, know he killed Trian, but he is progressive— far more so than Harrowmont. I cannot ask you to leave behind your new life, no matter how much I want you to.”

“You put the brother who framed you on the throne? Why?” The words were harsh, unthinking. “What do you gain from such a position that you would put him on the throne?”

Sereda looked at Gorim, her eyes assessing. “I chose in Orzammar’s best interests, Gorim,” she snapped. “I can’t see Harrowmont as a good, strong king. He will _cripple_ Orzammar if he were ruler. Do not think I made the decision lightly.”

“Then why make it at all?”

Sereda closed her eyes, and Gorim saw the flash of pain there. “Because the Blight is real. There are far worse things than a tyrant king, and it won’t matter who is king in Orzammar if it gets swallowed by darkspawn! It won’t matter that Bhelen killed Trian and framed me for it when our precious Assembly lies dead and Orzammar overrun. It won’t matter— I _am_ a Grey Warden now, Gorim, and I swore the oath of all Wardens—” she cut herself off.

Gorim reached his hand out to touch her on the shoulder, and Sereda shied away. She held up her hand.

“Touch me again and it will be the last time you do.”

That hurt.

But how had he expected this to go otherwise? Surprise and joy turned to ashes and dust in his mouth. They had both changed— she had possibly changed too much, or had he truly thought Sereda Aeducan would come home with him, or was he mad to think so? And yet, he still loved her, still respected her. But they were too different now— life had changed them both. He’d gone from her right hand and lover, to this. A merchant. Not a respected member of the Warrior Caste, a leader of men.

But _Sereda_?

She was a Grey Warden now.

She had other responsibilities, other goals.

He understood.

“Fine,” he said, stiffly. “Good luck.”

She turned, her posture stiff and straight.

And then Denerim was overrun. An army of darkspawn at the gates, a human Queen giving a speech.

Then it was over.

And Gorim Saelac _wept_.

Cradled the lifeless body of the woman he had loved all his life.

He knew one day, he would join her in the afterlife.

Named his first child for her, a daughter with golden hair and a smile like sunshine.

_Sereda._


End file.
